FRANK LAMPARD says Chelsea have a stronger squad than Manchester United despite the £50million spending spree at Old Trafford.

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has moved quickly to get ahead of his rivals and build upon the Premier League title his club won in May by bringing in Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David De Gea, and are also aiming to buy Inter Milan star Wesley Sneijder.

Chelsea arrived in Malaysia yesterday under new manager Andre Villas-Boas having signed nobody yet, though the £8m deal for Genk goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, 19, is expected to be completed today.

But despite the fact that Chelsea finished runners-up in the league last year by nine points and saw their Champions League hopes ended by United in the quarter-finals, Frank Lampard still believes that his team will be better this coming season.

Lampard, 33, said: “United have been very active and spent fortunes on good-quality players, but we know we have a very good squad.

However much Manchester United spend, we still believe in ourselves.

Frank Lampard

“We are going to be very strong next season and, however much United spend, we still believe in ourselves.”

Lampard, who played for 45 minutes as Chelsea won 1-0 in their friendly at Portsmouth on Saturday, added: “The manager is bringing us out to the Far East to evaluate what he has got.

“We have had six or seven very successful years. You can’t win every year; that’s obvious. But credit to United, they deserved to win the league and I don’t think anyone would dispute that Barcelona deserved to win the European Cup.

“Our problems came in the middle of the season last year, when we couldn’t get our focus right. So this season will be about keeping our eye on the ball.”

Villas-Boas has already made a big impact on the training ground and Lampard said: “The fact that Andre is young is irrelevant.

“There is a nice freshness, a new style and new training methods from last year.

“His quality is important. You saw that at Porto and we know his ideals are very similar to what we had at Chelsea before. On the training ground, it has been a bit different. It has always been fast and intense and there’s not been one session where people can relax or be sloppy.

“There is some discipline and some rules that are important. He doesn’t want to lay down too many laws but he expects us to understand the laws without having to tell us. He has a good bunch here.” Villas-Boas, whose team play four games on their Far East tour in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong, has promised that while he continues his assessment of the squad of players he has inherited, no one is safe.

Villas-Boas said: “It is a big 15 days for us out here. Then we will go to the market and do some business. My job is to keep the standards high. Are there untouchables? Untouchables are players who have consistently achieved at a high level.

“These are the kind of people you want at Chelsea. As long as they can meet the expectations of the supporters – that is their job.

“For a manager, the most important thing is to be coherent in the decisions he makes.”